Asian Games: Record-breaker Jinson sets sights higher

Jinson Johnson has been making a habit of breaking national records at will. The lanky runner, who has been in the form of his life this season, shattered the 42-year-old 800m record, the oldest mark in the Indian record books, during the 58th Inter-State Senior Athletics Championships held in Guwahati in June. Before that, the 27-year-old had rewritten the 1,500m national record at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April.

Now, he is eyeing glory at the Asian Games, scheduled to kick off in Indonesia on August 18. Jinson may land gold for the country in 800m if he manages to repeat his personal best of 1:45:65 seconds at the quadrennial event.

A junior commissioned officer (JCO) in the Indian Army, Jinson is in Bhutan currently to undergo high-altitude training ahead of the continental spectacle.

“I had been hoping to break the 800m national record at the Asian Games. Now, my goal is to finish among the top three,” he said.

Jinson, a native of Chakkittapara in Kozhikode district, ran the most memorable race in his career at the inter-senior meet to shave 0.12 seconds off the four-decade-old 800m record of 1:45.77 seconds set by legendary Sriram Singh at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Apart from etching his name in the history books with that superb effort, he also booked a ticket for the Asian Games in the process as the qualification mark was 1:47.50 seconds.

His previous personal best was 1:45.98 seconds registered in Bengaluru in 2016.

At the Commonwealth Games, he ran his heart out to clock 3:37.86 seconds in the 1,500m finals and wiped out the 23-year-old national record set by Bahadur Prasad. However, he had to be content with a fifth-place finish in a field that included the 2017 World Championship gold and silver medallists.

Jinson, who clinched medals at the last two editions of the Asian Athletics Championships, expects nothing less than two podium finishes in Indonesia.

His major achievement so far has been the silver medal in the 800 metres event at the 2015 Asian Athletics Championships held in Wuhan and the bronze in the Bhubaneswar Asian championships last year.

Dronacharya awardee national athletics coach J S Bhatia is satisfied with his ward’s progress and hopes for at least two medals from him at the Asiad, in both the 800m and 1,500m races.